Interchip, chip to board, and board to board communications currently present serious problems in data transfer including speed and bandwidth. Intrachip communications do have high speed capacity but the interconnection of the different parts of the chip using metal conductors has given rise to a routing problem. Presently, in order to provide necessary intrachip connections multi-layer (six or seven layers) fabrication is required which is time consuming and expensive. To overcome this, optical communications are being used which increase bandwidth and speed even in intrachip communications. In chips using gallium arsenide optical communications are possible between electronic circuits on the chip but even here the routing problem persists. In one optical communication scheme communications are effected using optical transmitters and receivers; however they must be aligned one to one so that the signals from each emitter are only received by the intended detector.